Truth in advertising... I saw several positive comments in different threads about using a mix of citric acid, dish soap and boiling water and decided to give it a try on some pretty dirty .45 ACP brass I have.
The brass had already been cleaned in a vibrating cleaner using ground walnut hulls and cleaned their exterior pretty good. However, the interior of the cases remained pretty cruddy and I didn’t like the way the primer holes looked... so a hundred or so went into the mix.
I didn’t see a drastic difference in the exterior of the cases. But holly cow, the effectiveness of the citric acid on the dirty interior well beyond what I expected.
On the left are a sample of the brass cleaned with the citric acid. On the right are cases that I didn’t clean in the acid. You can see that the mix really does do a good job of getting the crud out around the primer hole.
I can’t wait to pop the spent primers and see what the primer pocket looks like. Depending on what the primer pocket looks like, I think I will test the next batch after popping the spent primers.